WIP July - Oathmark Troops

As promised in my last post, I have here some of my WIP that I've been working on during the lockdown. This time around it's the first of the troops I intend to use for games of Oathmark when we are allowed to get to the clubs again.

Infantry unit is based on the Fireforge Forgotten World Infantry that I picked up in the kickstarter tale end of last year, or the first two of the three boxes I picked up anyway. Took a bit of construction and a reasonable amount of mould line removal plus the heads that I used from the box sets don't fit very well (sitting very high on the torso) and required cutting down to sit correctly to my eye anyway.

I used a selection of GW heads from Empire and Bretonnian sets and altered a few of the Fireforge heads adding greenstuff caps to match the look I was going for. I ended up using about half a dozen or so of the historical heads from a Fireforge Scandinavian box set to add some more variety but these had to be drilled and pinned with gaps at the neck filled as the location method between the kits is completely different (historical the socket is on the head, fantasy the socket is on the torso).

I'll add the other box set to the unit some time in the future for use of the unit in other rule sets but they're not required for Oathmark. In fact only 20 of the figs are needed for Oathmark and I'll probably sabot the figs so they fit the base frontages for use in the rules.

The Cavalry follow the same basic premise of the Infantry being from the Fireforge Forgotten World Kickstarter bundle I picked up but this time using only GW heads principally Bretonnian for a slightly diffent look. Again, there's another box to be constructed to make up a larger unit but not required for initial small Oathmark games planned. The Infantry and Cavalry units are destined, in their full sized capacity, to also be used in my ongoing Alba Campaign as Northern states militia types.

Finally in this WIP trio is the first of the giants planned. Probably easily recognisable as one of the GW Giants of Albion from the defunct Dogs of War range which I have multitudes of in the 'to do' list.

Picked up a couple of the Giants boxes when they were current but never really had a use for them until now so they've finally managed to see the light of day.

Bit of a pig to assemble with much drilling and pinning and still to finish off filling in the gaps with greenstuff to finish off the assembly and will move onto painting up this bad boy once I've finished a couple of other figures that are nearing completion.

I'll post again and report on progress for this project including other troops in construction for this army.

Next up, a wee bit of WIP on my Future Wars project progress from during lockdown.

Bad Day at Ganish Aer - The Celesterale

Back at the beginning of April (doesn't time fly when you're having fun) I posted up a small project that was planned to keep me busy during lockdown, 'Isolation Excercise' in painting up the terrain and figures for playing a Thud & Blunder based skirmish game.

As fate would have it, lockdown didn't seem to have as much free time available as I thought it may and with working from home and my better half thinking up lots of 'odd jobs' that suddenly required doing, the last three months have positively flown by. This being a good thing really.

Don't get me wrong, I have managed to get through much hobby goodness over the period, probably more than I would have normally, just not as much as I thought (or hoped) I may. Lots's of WIP to post about, some of which I'll do over the next couple of days, over several projects and not least 'Bad Day at Ganish Aer' which this update is around with the first of the three warbands finally getting completed.

A brief background for the Celesterale are that they are a Radical splinter group of the Magus Preceptory, which are the Magister faction of the ruling elite from the declining Celebrian Empire. The representative's of the Celesterale is the warband led by Graven, who is an 'agent at large' attempting to further the machinations of the Preceptory by any means he deems necessary.

Graven - Magister

A lot of you may recognise the figure here being the long OOP pre-slotta base Citadel Chaos Wizard which I've had rolling around for 35 years or more unpainted and un-loved, so he got picked as part of the project to do some. I found the figure quite hard to paint and couldn't settle on a paint scheme that I was happy with but ended up going for a dark blue and red scheme which didn't end up as dark as intended. Should of gone for a standard bad guy black and red with gold bits scheme but hey, turned out alright I suppose.

Ademar Vinx and his 'pet' Wraith

Ademar is the bad wizard type 'Vonatar' from the old Lone Wolf mid 80's Ciadel range and is a figure I'd already painted for a Mordheim campaign we had a couple of years ago, but received a touch up and a re-painted base. Ademars Wraith is a fairly newly acquired figure from one of the Northstar Frostgrave Nickstarter's a couple of years ago. This is a pretty easy figure to paint having a single colour or so to paint and highlight. One of the first to be put to bed.

Sooni Khawn and Vengtar U'Bharunn
Corrindessian Mercenaries

The two Corrindessian Mercenaries, Sooni Khawn and Vengtar U'Bharunn, hailing from much sunnier and distant climes, the figures are again from Northstar's Frostgrave range Cultist knights which I picked up as soon as they were released as they really fitted my idea of what Corrindessian's would look like as soon as I saw them. They took a considerable amount of time to paint, mainly due to the amount of detail on them but quite happy with how they tuned out.

Skeleton Bodyguards

The cannon fodder of the warband, the ubiquitous skeletons, are again figures which I had previously painted but again received a facelift and brightened up bases. They are early-ish citadel armoured skeletons which I picked up a pack of somewhere in a bring and buy and are some of my favourite skeleton figures. I would like to track down some more of these as they are full of character.

So, a small update this time and the next warband now moving into the WIP pile are Elspeth and Melinda, commonly known in adventuring circles of Northern Tir-mor as 'the Glitter Twins' and their band of colourful 'Toughs'.